Vox Cast: The Repository Thread

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

Campaigns and narrative play feels like the main core for sure, followed by toutnament and pick up games with strangers.

Design studio is stuck in the past. People don't have time to run campaigns or play unbalanced narrative games/ scenario's. There is enough imbalance in the matched play format without exacerbating it further with some narrative elements.

Campaigns are more balanced than matched play because you can have the organizer make corrections to balance issues as opposed a tournament organizer who has to place consistency over balance.

 

Also the point of a narrative game is to play asymmetrically. The fact you don’t realize that means you’ve missed the whole point. Just because the defending player is eventually wiped out doesn’t mean they’ve lost the bunker assault or planetstrike mission.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Marshal Rohr

[BitsHammer]

 

Campaigns and narrative play feels like the main core for sure, followed by toutnament and pick up games with strangers.

Design studio is stuck in the past. People don't have time to run campaigns or play unbalanced narrative games/ scenario's. There is enough imbalance in the matched play format without exacerbating it further with some narrative elements.

I disagree. We have thousands of people who play this game every week, but how many actually bother with tournaments? Not even half that.

 

EDIT: Someone over on Dakka did some math and basically Tournament players account for maybe 10% of GW's market. 

 

Long story short, the game is more than tournament play, and honestly @MegaVolt87 is falling down the same hole James talks about in the video: trying to derive a sense of enjoyment from how "balanced" the game is, rather than the events of the game itself. No game can (or will) be perfectly balanced, and most of the time no one can agree on what that balance should look like. Claiming the game shouldn't let you do narrative things because it's not balanced is silly, especially since you can build narrative missions around being purposefully imbalanced.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Fulkes

[MegaVolt87]

 

 

Campaigns and narrative play feels like the main core for sure, followed by toutnament and pick up games with strangers.

Design studio is stuck in the past. People don't have time to run campaigns or play unbalanced narrative games/ scenario's. There is enough imbalance in the matched play format without exacerbating it further with some narrative elements.

I disagree. We have thousands of people who play this game every week, but how many actually bother with tournaments? Not even half that.

 

EDIT: Someone over on Dakka did some math and basically Tournament players account for maybe 10% of GW's market. 

 

Long story short, the game is more than tournament play, and honestly @MegaVolt87 is falling down the same hole James talks about in the video: trying to derive a sense of enjoyment from how "balanced" the game is, rather than the events of the game itself. No game can (or will) be perfectly balanced, and most of the time no one can agree on what that balance should look like. Claiming the game shouldn't let you do narrative things because it's not balanced is silly, especially since you can build narrative missions around being purposefully imbalanced.

 

I don't think it unreasonable to expect each person to have close to a 50/50 chance of winning a game they play regardless of faction. Playing skewed narrative games, where the winner can often be seen at the point of what list who brings, how is that enjoyable knowing you are just a paper target for the opponent? People apparently play narrative over matched to avoid this when ironically its worse in narrative play. All the errata and FAQ happen because of matched play, this is filtered down into narrative when you are using the correct updates.  This would explain why many rules are busted on release as either OP or weak by having narrative style of game drive rules development. I believe they would make fewer mistakes if they were more matched play oriented in development. 

[Marshal Rohr]

Because you’re not paper targets. If you can hold the bunker line for six turns instead of three you have the initiative in the next battle. Or if your strike force slays the warlord you get a bonus in the campaign. This further illustrates you don’t get it, because you’re thinking in terms of playing a one off game and moving onto the next opponent. You don’t play narrative as a one off unless it’s just to like recreate a famous duel or battle from a book. You definitely don’t play it with strangers. This game is for friends, not strangers.

[MegaVolt87]

Because you’re not paper targets. If you can hold the bunker line for six turns instead of three you have the initiative in the next battle. Or if your strike force slays the warlord you get a bonus in the campaign. This further illustrates you don’t get it, because you’re thinking in terms of playing a one off game and moving onto the next opponent. You don’t play narrative as a one off unless it’s just to like recreate a famous duel or battle from a book. You definitely don’t play it with strangers. This game is for friends, not strangers.

 

I will meet you guys half way and concede that narrative games are indeed for friends, not strangers where matched play is superior. I have said my piece, the thread is derailing a bit so I won't say more. 

[Panzer]

It's not like it's impossible to play narrative focussed campaigns with matched play rules who are objectively more balanced on a base level, you know? That argument never made sense to me.

At the end of the day the only real differences betwee Narrative play and Matched play is stuff like Matched play not allowing Stratagem spam, psychic power spam, reinforcements spam. Nothing that's particularly good in a narrative setting either unless you really want to play against an endless horde of daemons or something like that (though then you could always handle that via mission rules too).

[BitsHammer]

It's not like it's impossible to play narrative focussed campaigns with matched play rules who are objectively more balanced on a base level, you know? That argument never made sense to me.

At the end of the day the only real differences betwee Narrative play and Matched play is stuff like Matched play not allowing Stratagem spam, psychic power spam, reinforcements spam. Nothing that's particularly good in a narrative setting either unless you really want to play against an endless horde of daemons or something like that (though then you could always handle that via mission rules too).

Speaking of endless waves, I kind of miss the old Meatgrinder mission.

[Marshal Rohr]

It's not like it's impossible to play narrative focussed campaigns with matched play rules who are objectively more balanced on a base level, you know? That argument never made sense to me.

At the end of the day the only real differences betwee Narrative play and Matched play is stuff like Matched play not allowing Stratagem spam, psychic power spam, reinforcements spam. Nothing that's particularly good in a narrative setting either unless you really want to play against an endless horde of daemons or something like that (though then you could always handle that via mission rules too).

Speaking purely from using Heresy rules where you play narrative missions with points values that’s kind of the angle of shoot for with 8th. You just have to dip into the indexes for some stuff.

[Klod]

Good Vox Cast. I'm on the same page with Wade and James. Me and my friend constatnly tweak the rules a little bit to make the game feel less like a competition between two players and more like a battle between two armies.

 

For example we took the rule from Kill Team that we ignore small terrain features that are less than 1,5'' tall when moving and charging. Or we don't fight through a solid wall even if it is technically allowed. I also suggested that, since he is playing Death Guard, we treat his Chaos Lord as Tgh 5 and with 5+++, because that how we feel it should be. Not a huge deal if one player recieves a benefit from our tweeks, we don't play to win.

 

I undestand that this only works with friends and not with random strangers from the shop, that why it's good to try and socialise with people.

[Kenzaburo]

I'm in that same boat with Klod. I recently played a bunch of pick-up games which were significantly less fun than the matched but also kinda narrative games I have with friends. I feel like the latter enables more variations for play, little house-rules and especially creating a narrative with your friends. It feels more immersive to me. 

 

Don't get me wrong, the pick-up games were quite alright, but they lacked the kind of character that I'm used to when playing with my friends. And that's something I like about Voxcast, those short glimpses of how the studio guys play, where lore and setting and little narratives oftentimes seem to feature more into the overall playing of the game. This might be different for some, maybe even many, where you also do that in pick-up games. But for me, those are the ones where it's all about rules, models more as markers than representations of little heroes and winning. It felt like less of an overall experience - to me, that is. And that might not be, what several, if not all, of the studio guys experience on a daily basis, playing mostly with colleagues and friends and less strangers.

[Slips]

Looks like this week is the guy who designed Painted Abaddon 

 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Chaplain Dosjetka
Converted link into vid.

[Marshal Loss]

Guy who painted Abaddon, not designed him.

[Tyriks]

That is not the guy that designed Abaddon, unless I am mistaken.

[MegaVolt87]

I'll watch this one, I don't like the studio Abaddon. We have better paint jobs for him here on our board. I assume he talks about the studio painting principles etc. 

[alfred_the_great]

Interesting listen. Especially for someone who got an E at GCSE art!

 

Quite honest about how the ‘Eavy Metal style is just one of many styles, and specifically pointed out that the Slayer Sword this year was won by someone who stepped way outside that visual narrative.

 

I’m mildly interested in the “theory” they keep talking about - is there a specific miniature painting theory, or is it just wider colour theory?

[Jareddm]

This week we've got Andy Clark with a lot of talk about the Indomitus Crusade.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvelC0louCQ

[Marshal Rohr]

Very informative episode

[Marshal Loss]

Not sure exactly where the lore is being made more believable by a knowledge of military history, but I certainly support any attempt to rehabilitate the Indomitus Crusade following what I saw as an underwhelming (to say the least) introduction to the setting. Couldn't help but roll my eyes at the Guilliman handwave just as the discussion began to touch on logistics. The studio could learn a lot from FW's treatment(s), especially when it comes to the Primarchs. Will have to give this a proper listen later

Edited October 1, 2019 by Marshal Loss

[Felix Antipodes]

Finally got a chance to listen to this episode and it was full of interesting stuff. What I took away from it though was that GW has done a lot of deep thinking about a lot of the stuff I've seen complaints and gripes about, both here and elsewhere in the hobby, wrt the background storyline and/or the lack there of.

 

So my question, since Andy (and others) have worked out all this, is where is my bloody background book? At the very least a semi-regular article series in White Dwarf would be nice.

[BitsHammer]

They've been doing some noce background stuff in WD. I mean we saw the Indomitus Crusade, Blood Ravens and Dark Angels lore recently. Edited October 4, 2019 by Fulkes

[alfred_the_great]

Finally got a chance to listen to this episode and it was full of interesting stuff. What I took away from it though was that GW has done a lot of deep thinking about a lot of the stuff I've seen complaints and gripes about, both here and elsewhere in the hobby, wrt the background storyline and/or the lack there of.

 

So my question, since Andy (and others) have worked out all this, is where is my bloody background book? At the very least a semi-regular article series in White Dwarf would be nice.

Show, don't tell.

[Felix Antipodes]

They've been doing some noce background stuff in WD. I mean we saw the Indomitus Crusade, Blood Ravens and Dark Angels lore recently.

All of which were read and appreciated. I just have an abiding affection for the background books BL used to push out on a regular basis in the distant past. The updated Sabbat Worlds Crusade book promised for the years end is a good start. More of this going forward is what I want to see.

 

Edit: Please don't stop the WD stuff though; it hasn't been this readable - and relevant - in years.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Felix Antipodes

[Bryan Blaire]

Voxcast 23 was with Tom Walton:

 

 

Some interesting things I heard from Tom Walton and Wade Pryce (although I'm sure some of these will be contreversial for some here):

- IG are more WW1/2 traditional designs/stylings, while Marines are intentionally keying off more modern stylings - it's an intentional separation they are using (and I think this is the point of none of the modern Marine vehicles having tracks)

 

- Marine vehicles are intended to be brutal - even their anti-grav is brutal - once again referenced the punching effect of the anti-grav in the tanks, it would knock over a wall, rather than “float over it daintily” and crush and scatter things beneath it

 

- Marine flyers are rocket-propelled fists in function, and mostly form - GW (at least these two blokes) also doesn't consider that there is the ability to actually stress-test and prove that these aircraft couldn't fly, especially in the various atmospheres Marines might invade. The use of anti-grav also seemingly helps deal with issues, but it's mostly “strap bigger rockets to it and make it fly.”

 

- They do actually put thought behind how things would work - Ork vehicles: examples of guys that know how to strip down an engine helping design the vehicles, but from an Orky view (how would an Ork rebuild this transaxle - have to know what a transaxle is before you can answer that)

 

- The model designers like seeing conversions of things, and ideas from conversions propogating through the community, but it sounded like concerns/thoughts for kit bashing pretty much only deal with similar connection sizes, and for infantry sizes, arms, heads, etc., but it doesn't seem like legs and torsos are really considered as part of kit-bashing as such

[MegaVolt87]

Voxcast 23 was with Tom Walton:

 

 

Some interesting things I heard from Tom Walton and Wade Pryce (although I'm sure some of these will be contreversial for some here):

- IG are more WW1/2 traditional designs/stylings, while Marines are intentionally keying off more modern stylings - it's an intentional separation they are using (and I think this is the point of none of the modern Marine vehicles having tracks)

 

- Marine vehicles are intended to be brutal - even their anti-grav is brutal - once again referenced the punching effect of the anti-grav in the tanks, it would knock over a wall, rather than “float over it daintily” and crush and scatter things beneath it

 

- Marine flyers are rocket-propelled fists in function, and mostly form - GW (at least these two blokes) also doesn't consider that there is the ability to actually stress-test and prove that these aircraft couldn't fly, especially in the various atmospheres Marines might invade. The use of anti-grav also seemingly helps deal with issues, but it's mostly “strap bigger rockets to it and make it fly.”

 

- They do actually put thought behind how things would work - Ork vehicles: examples of guys that know how to strip down an engine helping design the vehicles, but from an Orky view (how would an Ork rebuild this transaxle - have to know what a transaxle is before you can answer that)

 

- The model designers like seeing conversions of things, and ideas from conversions propogating through the community, but it sounded like concerns/thoughts for kit bashing pretty much only deal with similar connection sizes, and for infantry sizes, arms, heads, etc., but it doesn't seem like legs and torsos are really considered as part of kit-bashing as such

 

Thanks, I hate it. I got too much salt generated to meet our board standards to put these people on blast.   

[Marshal Rohr]

Uh, which part because there’s like a ton of different things you quoted.